4 Strategies From The Anti-#GamerGate PlaybookInstructions on doxxing and SWATing not included

Steve Alexander was a lifelong gamer until #GamerGate ripped the veil from his innocent (albeit bloodshot) eyes. Unlike most of his generation, he does not believe in Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat and can be reached at [email protected] You can follow him on Twitter.

Disclaimer: I was once a proud member of #GamerGate. When I heard that a group of my fellow white males were all up in arms and getting ready to harass women, I was like, “Hell yeah! I’ll bring a case of Natural Ice and we’ll make sure these bitches know they should be in the kitchen, like God intended!” This brought on a round of vigorous high-fives and completely un-homoerotic flexing before we hit our netbooks looking for ladies to “correct.”

Imagine my surprise when what I found was not the misogynistic hate mob that the press had informed me of. These “gamers” (or whatever the undead equivalent is—gamepires, maybe?) were making valid points, affecting change by informing the FTC of advertising without disclaimers (or 80% of Kotaku), and were more welcoming to women, even those with dissenting opinions, than their social justice counterparts. I couldn’t believe it. And so, like a fan whose team is tanking, I changed sides. Because without the ability to abuse, I have no interest in supporting a cause.

Interested in joining my limited but more socially vocal crew? Here are four easy steps that you can do to support the anti-GamerGate cause!

Step 1: Deny their most basic claim

Proponents of GamerGate have claimed from day one that they are only interested in ethics in journalism. They claim that their interest in Zoe Quinn was only due to the nepotism it exposed, and their investigation of other women in gaming who spoke out against GamerGate is well-intended.

Of course, that’s terrible for our cause, so what we’re going to do is deny that. Inform the general public that these undead gamers are only interested in harassing women. Don’t allow them to take the moral high ground here—we’re protecting women, goddamn it! All women, whether they like it or not! Also minorities! Gamers hate minorities, which is why they buy white male power fantasies in droves.

Don’t let them point to Sleeping Dogs (Asian male protangonist), Tomb Raider (female protagonist), or any of the other countless examples of games which sold well and weren’t headlined by white males. We’re keeping the focus on games like Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed (not Liberation, dammit, that ruins our point!).

Do not refer to this female minority protagonist – we are only interested in talking about the OTHER assassins.

Step 2: Restrict the conversation to a single gender and race

Everyone knows that gamers are exclusively white males. That’s common knowledge, and white privilege is so prevalent in this disgusting patriarchal society we live in that white males cannot be right, due to their inherent privileged upbringing and the perks they get for simply being born the correct gender and color. Good white males are even thankful that they have the privilege to be mugged.

Again, we’re going to be doing a bit of ignoring here. Ignore the fact that Jonathan McIntosh (producer, Feminist Frequency), Ben Kuchera (staff writer, Polygon), and many other prominent social justice warriors are white males. That’s besides the point. The point is to demonize the stereotypical gamer, who are the root of the problem.

THIS is a gamer. Don’t let anyone convince you different.

I know that there are poor women and minorities (a lot of them, unfortunately) who have rallied under the #NotYourShield banner. Those poor race and gender traitors don’t realize that we know what’s best. We’re fighting for their inclusiveness, dammit! We’re fighting for games that teach social equality! Don’t you understand that games are educational tools to help society move toward a more colorblind future, and aren’t just frivolous experiences designed to entertain you?

It’s like none of these people realize we have their best intentions at heart.

Step 3: Remove logic, insert feeling

These GamerGaters are going to come at you with a lot of cold, unfeeling logic. “You don’t like a game? Then don’t play it!” they’ll scream at the top of their intolerant lungs. Don’t they realize that just knowing a game like Grand Theft Auto V or Hatred is on the shelves can be very damaging to women and children?

It’s time we told these “gamers” how we feel. The next time you watch a trailer for a game and it offends you, write a blog post about how terrible it made you feel, despite its overwhelming popularity. Support initiatives that ban these games because they are misogynistic and disgusting.

Grand Theft Auto V is a great example of our recent success. Sure, we had to fudge the truth about prostitute abuse and leave out inconvenient facts like the equality of being able to kill everyone, not just women—not to mention that damned torture scene where you are forced via storyline to kill a white man—but we saved the citizens of Australia from choosing to buy a game which had already sold millions of copies! We just need more success like this in other parts of the world.

Whatever you do, do not engage these GamerGaters in a discussion involving reason and logic. Like the vile sealions they are, they will choose to spit out fact after fact in supporting their thesis, which makes me feel so terrible that all I feel like doing is hitting the caps lock before tweeting “FUCK” and calling names! And then these GamerGaters act all emotionless and treat me like my outburst wasn’t their fault!

Our Patr(e)on Saint, showing us how to deal with vile men.

Step 4: Block out dissenting voices

Since GamerGate supporters have this disturbing ability to make me feel emotionally unstable, I would like to thank Our Lady of Twitter, Randi Harper, for providing us with a tool which we can use to block out all the vile misogyny happening on Twitter these days. Now my Twitter feed is a safe place once more, and I don’t see the hashtag #GamerGate even once! I am somewhat disturbed that I don’t receive notifications from Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore, but not being able to pick up a bucket of Original or Extra Crispy on sale is well worth not seeing GamerGate posts.

In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything related to GamerGate since using Randi’s tool. Maybe that means the misogyny movement is over! I think I’ll go write a blog post about how GamerGate concluded last month. Let me know if you have any more advice in fighting the patriarchy down in the comments!

Steve Alexander was a lifelong gamer until #GamerGate ripped the veil from his innocent (albeit bloodshot) eyes. Unlike most of his generation, he does not believe in Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat and can be reached at [email protected] You can follow him on Twitter.